At the London summit the fish get a date and the young get a promise

On 19 May Keir Starmer received Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa at Lancaster House for the first summit between the United Kingdom and the Union since withdrawal. The negotiators worked through Sunday night, and the Union held to its rule that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.[1] The leaders adopted three documents: a joint statement, a Security and Defence Partnership and a Common Understanding on a renewed agenda for cooperation.[1] Von der Leyen said the two sides were "turning a page and opening a new chapter".[2] Starmer said it was time to look forward.[3] We have read the texts with one question in mind: what do they give the generation that grew up with the Union and watched the United Kingdom leave it?

One partnership, one date and a list of intentions

The Security and Defence Partnership is the one instrument that the summit concluded. The European External Action Service describes it as a structured political framework. It sets a foreign and security policy dialogue every six months between the High Representative and the British foreign and defence secretaries, and a separate annual dialogue on security and defence. Its fields run from crisis management to maritime, space and cyber security, hybrid threats and irregular migration. It also opens the door, where both sides agree, to British participation in Union defence programmes such as SAFE.[4] Von der Leyen called the Partnership a "first step towards UK participation" in SAFE, with its 150 billion euros of loans for joint procurement.[5] The terms of British participation and the size of any British contribution are not defined, and SAFE requires that about 65 per cent of a purchased system be made in the Union or by a partner with an agreement in place.[1]

The Common Understanding contains one hard commitment. Paragraph 3 records full reciprocal access to waters to fish until 30 June 2038.[6] The present arrangement expires in June 2026, and the figures that circulated before the summit were close to five years. Twelve years was the hardest point for Starmer to sell at home.[1] The British government answers that the Union catch does not increase and that it will spend 360 million pounds on its own fleet.[7]

Everything else is an intention. The two sides will work towards a common sanitary and phytosanitary area. It would rest on dynamic alignment with Union rules, a financial contribution from the United Kingdom and a dispute mechanism in which the Court of Justice is the ultimate authority on questions of Union law.[6] They will work towards a link between the two carbon markets, with mutual exemptions from the two carbon border adjustment mechanisms, and they will explore British participation in the internal electricity market on the same terms of dynamic alignment.[6] London estimates that the two agreements would add nearly 9 billion pounds to its economy by 2040.[7] Anand Menon and Jannike Wachowiak observe that, beyond the Partnership, the fisheries date and regular summits, little has been firmly agreed. The Commission must now propose negotiating mandates for approval by the Member States, and the Union and Switzerland needed twelve months to move from a common understanding to a final agreement.[8]

What the texts give the under-thirties

Paragraph 13 of the Common Understanding commits both sides to work towards "a balanced youth experience scheme on terms to be mutually agreed". Participation would last for a limited period through a dedicated visa path, and the overall number of participants must be acceptable to both sides. The text names no age range, no duration and no number.[6] Paragraph 14 commits the United Kingdom to work towards association with Erasmus+.[6] Menon and Wachowiak call that commitment a surprise.[8]

The distance travelled in thirteen months is real. On 18 April 2024 the Commission proposed to open negotiations on a mobility scheme for people aged 18 to 30. The Sunak government replied that "free movement within the EU was ended", and Labour said the same thing within its red lines.[9] The same party has now signed paragraph 13. Its ministers still describe the scheme in negatives. Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC it was "very different to freedom of movement", visas would still be required and participants would not get free health care.[1] The government presents the scheme as capped and time-limited, on the model of its arrangements with Australia and New Zealand.[7] The opposition fills the silence. Chris Philp describes the scheme as potentially uncapped.[2] Kemi Badenoch says Britain is becoming a rule-taker from Brussels again, and Nigel Farage says the fisheries clause "will be the end of the fishing industry".[3]

We draw two conclusions. The method of this reset is the Swiss method: sector by sector, with dynamic alignment, a financial contribution and the Court of Justice at the end of the chain.[6] That method is slow, and it is the price of leaving a single market and asking to rejoin parts of it. The youth scheme is the one item in these texts that a 25-year-old in Lille or Leeds can feel directly. A scheme without a number is a slogan for both camps. A scheme with a number is a policy.

What both sides should do now

First, the Commission should table the negotiating mandates for the sanitary agreement, the carbon market link and the youth experience scheme before the summer, and the Council should adopt them before the autumn. The twelve months Switzerland needed would then become the ceiling for this negotiation.[8]

Second, the negotiators should publish the age range, the duration of stay and the annual cap of the youth experience scheme at the first round, because every month without a figure feeds the claim that the scheme is uncapped.[2]

Third, the Member States should settle the conditions of British participation in SAFE, including the British contribution and the treatment of the 65 per cent European content rule, before the first loans are allocated. The Partnership would then become more than a dialogue calendar.[1]

Fourth, the two sides should set out in public how the fisheries access to 2038 and the sanitary agreement enter into force together. The Union made the long fisheries term the condition for engaging on trade, and fishing communities on both coasts deserve a single calendar.[8]